Discovering Canadian Oddities: An Ongoing Occurrence

Canadian Oddity #3:

Canadian post offices are actually privately-owned franchises run by non-governmental employees. The government still owns and regulates the Canada Post; however, privately-owned entities still receive a major share of the profits. Isn't it interesting that this major Canadian institution is less-socialized than its US equivalent?

I discovered this oddity while shopping at Zellers, the Canadian version of K-Mart. The post office was actually in the department store, just like a hair salon or a bank! How weird is that?

Provincial Elections in Canada

I was able to witness the British Columbia provincial election on Tuesday. Jeff took me with him when he went to vote, and it was interesting but not very exciting, probably because the polling location was dead, and there was not much hype preceding or succeeding the election. This particular voting location was at a church, and the signs outside the door looked like this: 

These are not my pictures, by the way; I was too scared to take pictures in fear of being mistaken for an American anarchist or something. Anyways, the area wasn't plastered with flags like you usually see at polling places in the US, just with these signs. We walk into the church, and there are about 10 tables set up in rows in a small gym with 2 people at each table. The table to which you are assigned depends on the first letter of your last name. You go to your assigned table, show your ID, get two ballots, and vote right at that same table behind a small cardboard partition. 

Once again, this is not my picture, but a picture I found on cbc.ca; however, Jeff's polling place looked almost exactly like this. You don't have to wait in one long line to show someone your ID and then wait in another line to cast your vote, as often happens in the US. The large space in which people were voting (the gym) was quite a bit more comfortable than the small hallway of the elementary school in Kentucky in which I voted last November. I waited in line for over an hour to vote at one of the two voting machines, one of which wasn't functioning properly (I was able to vote at the other one, thank god). Here there are as many places to register and vote as there are tables, and there are plenty of volunteers to facilitate this process.

Jeff was handed 2 paper ballots (electronic voting is apparently only done at a municipal level here in Canada at this time) with only one item to vote upon on each: which party they want as the majority in Parliament (which appoints the Premier, who is the Canadian equivalent of a US state governor), and whether or not they want a proposal (called a referendum) to pass. I wasn't able to see Jeff's ballots, but I found an image of the referendum ballot on another website:

Voters simply put an X in the circle next to the electoral system they want, and that's it. The other ballot operates the same way, just with a list of the parties' names with the same big white circles by them. You're only voting for one party, so you don't have to do research on a bunch of candidates you've never heard of who are running for other offices you really don't care about (or feel guilty about just voting straight ticket, an option that doesn't exist in Canada). 

Apparently the "liberals" won the most seats in the provincial Parliament in this election, but apparently being "liberal" and "conservative" means something different in Canada, a subject about which I will write later once I've learned more about it. The result of the referendum vote is still inconclusive as the ballots are still being counted.

Speaking of political parties, there are some pretty interesting parties here in BC. A few weeks ago, Jeff and I were stopped at a light in downtown Abbotsford, and I noticed the following sign:

The sign reads "Your Mom Called Da Kine. She Said to Bring Home a $20 Bag." I stared at this sign for a good 30 seconds before realizing what it meant. I turned to Jeff and said, "Is that what I think it is?!" Da Kine is apparently the name of a pot shop that supports candidates of the BC Marijuana Party, and is located right smack dab in the middle of downtown Abbotsford:

Possession of marijuana is not legal in Canada; however, the BC Marijuana Party is more powerful here than I would have ever expected, or maybe it just appears that way. The party first started participating in BC elections in 2001, but was excluded from the debates even though it had more candidates running in that election than the Green Party or the Unity Party, both of which were allowed to participate. In that election the Marijuana Party achieved 3.22% of the popular vote. According to some, the party would be a lot more powerful if they campaigned for more than that one issue.

There is also the Sex Party, which advocates for more acceptance of sex education, indecent exposure, and prostitution. In this past election, the party received 684 of the 1.5 million votes cast in the general election. According to their website, the party's goal is not to get their candidates elected, only to push their political agenda. 

I really don't have any sort of insightful conclusion with which to end this post, simply because I don't know enough about the topic to act as an authority. I can't say whether Canada's voting process is better or worse than the US's as their government's structure and electoral process appears to be quite different. I admit that I've been having a hard time wrapping my head around this system of government, but I will continue to do more research and reading as I did for some of the items presented in this entry. Despite the research, this post is probably riddled with inaccuracies, so please do not use it as a reference when writing a doctoral dissertation as you may regret it later.